When is exploitation okay? The Duality of Bayonetta · 9:58pm Mar 8th, 2018
My Nintendo Switch is going to kill me one day. I think it was designed to kill me. I could barely afford to spend money on it in the first place, I've neglected relationships to indulge in its beauty, and it's portable so I often can't resist the temptation to just "play for a few minutes before bedtime". Yeah let's see how well that works out.
It's also probably going to kill me because god help me, after throwing down thirty dollars on Bayonetta I think I have to thrown down another thirty on Bayonetta 2. I really wasn't sure I wanted both, but oh my lord this game is fun. I have been gushing to my partners about it all week, This game is aesthetically my favorite thing I have ever experienced on a console and I want to have its wonderful quad-gun wielding children. It is ridiculous and joyful and fun in all the ways that make me happy.
It's also my new vehicle for discussing sexism, male gaze, empowerment, and every other talking-about-women-in-media thing that causes reactionaries to incessantly complain whenever someone brings them up. Because when I talk about disposable media, I go highbrow, baby.
There's basically two conversations people have about Bayonetta. There's the conversation I enjoy having but I'm not qualified to have about how it's one of the most polished and exciting twitchy action games ever and has a surprising amount in common with modern-day successors to old arcade titles without sacrificing its polish; and then there's the conversation about Bayonetta's... um....
Look there's no getting around this: Bayonetta is a sexualized video game lady down to a 't'. She has sexy attacks that de-clothe her, some of her signature attacks invoke pole-dancing poses, doing really well in a stage will reward the player with a voice clip of her telling them how naughty
they've been, and both games play a literal pole dance over their end credits. Bayonetta is one of the most deliberately sexualized characters in all of gaming history.
The discourse around this game is therefore a basic split between two camps of people. The first camp people who see Bayonetta's sexualization as a product of an industry that panders to straight men to the exclusion of all other groups and thus part of the larger problem of a dearth of cool lady characters in video games. The second camp argue that Bayonetta's sexuality is actually super empowering, and that ultimately she's a positive if not outright feminist character concept. If you press me I think I'm more into the second camp than the first (shocker), but ultimately I think this discourse is a little broken.
Because both camps are right.
Bayonetta is the product of Platinum Games, perhaps the premier studio for twitchy action games. Over the past few years Platinum has given the world major hits Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta, cult classics like Viewtiful Joe and The Wonderful 101, and most recently they've collaborated with noted developer and literal crazy person Yoko Taro to create the beautiful-as-hell Nier Automata.
Which, yes, I am extremely angry I won't get to play unless it magically gets a Switch port.
I bring Platinum up because they're also associated with something else: sophomoric pandering. Their name is likely to come up if you're talking about industry professionals who are making bold, mechanically intense games, but not so much when people discuss deep story-driven titles or characters who push forward new ideas of female character archetypes in gaming. Platinum wouldn't have made Life is Strange or the Persona titles. Hell, I don't think they even have it in them to make something like Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Too much of what they do is firmly rooted in the traditional 20-something-straight-dude audience the games industry laser targets most big budget titles at.
All of which is to say that critiques of Bayonetta that call her out as a character meant to appeal to men aren't wrong. Bayonetta was clearly marketed to appeal to straight dudes. She's overtly sexy and overtly sexualized. This is barely a debatable point. She wasn't the result of Hideki Kamiya suddenly having a massive third-wave feminist brain child about creating a sexy lady superhero. Honestly she's kind of two steps removed from the exact character design process that Kate Beaton critiques in "Strong Female Characters".
(If you've never read this strip, incidentally? You're welcome.)
What sets Bayonetta apart from the likes of Georgia O'Queefe, Susan B. Assthony and Queen Elizatits is two things. First, she's attached to a bold cinematic game that boasts absurdly strong cinematic and aesthetic direction, and you would be surprised how much leeway that gives you. The second thing is remarkably simple: Bayonetta owns her sexuality.
Brief aside: Kill LaKill, like Bayonetta, is another example of bold, medium-pushing escapist art that treads the line between fetishistic pandering and empowerment and I've been meaning to write about it for a long time. The reason I've held off is that I can't bring myself to finish Kill LaKill because no matter how much I love everyone involved in its production (and I do), I always get disgusted and give up after the first episode. I never really had the words to talk about why the sexualization of Ryuko bothered me in a way that other gratuitous anime cheesecake didn't until Bayonetta.
The difference between Bayonetta and every other title that claims it's using sex to make a Deep, Artistic Statement is twofold. 1) Bayonetta makes no such pretense, and 2) it instead just makes the character a badass angel-killing witch who happens to be absurdly comfortable with her own sexiness, and weaves her sexiness together with her badassery.
In Kill LaKill, Ryuko throws away her shame because a deep thematic message of the series is that shame holds people back and you should just do whatever you need to do even if it's pandery and weird and turns you into a fetishistic object. Bayonetta doesn't "learn" that, she's just never an object. Whenever Bayonetta acts sexy, it's because she's deliberately showing off. To accomodate this, the game just leans into the inherent absurdism and comedy of it premise, blending it together with the crazy action on screen.
Part of why I've never really liked the whole "bayonetta is a feminist character" discourse is that it tries to paint her as rebelling against a patriarchal power with sexy woman powers, and while that's kind of the case, I feel like that's some serious overthinking. The order Bayonetta fights isn't all that patriarchal, even. What makes her into a fun character as opposed to a disposable sex object is that the game doesn't treat her as an object. She's sexy, yes, but also stylish, cool, in control, and almost always having fun every second she's on screen.
Bayonetta is, in other words, a lady character who is, yes, being used to pander to guys - but she panders to them by being sexy in a way that doesn't make her less of a character.
And sometimes, that's all you need.
On that note BayonettaxJeanne fanfiction, please.
Interesting.
So I haven't played the game, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like there's a kind of double-layered thing going on here. Where as a fictional character, looked at from our universe, she's obviously been designed for the male gaze, but as a person in the game universe, she herself doesn't give a shit about the male gaze, she does what she wants because she wants to.
I can see how that could be very appealing and a ton of fun, and also seem much less icky than a badly-constructed "reclaiming sexuality" sort of character. (With the emphasis on "badly constructed", so I'm being clear. I suspect a well constructed "reclaiming sexuality" character could also be amazing, I'm just not sure I can think of one off the top of my head.)
I can one hundred percent throw myself behind this sentiment right here. It's why I've not usually been impressed by that line of thought. This was a good blog, Scarlets
Oh, my sweet, summer child.
4812754
Very much this.
Bayonetta is designed to appeal to dudes, but she's void of a lot of the things that make the ;'just there for the dudebros" style of character icky. She's got agency, and style, and actually seems like a remarkably cool and fun character.
One of my favorite anecdotes about the game is actually that the reason she has a pretty radical dedesign in Bayonetta 2 (trading her signature weird medieval hairdo for a spiky short cut) is that Hideki Kamiya thought she'd be the kind of person likely to change up her image to stay trendy and own a sense of style. In other words, at least by the second game in the series she's a character who the team behind the game thought of as a cohesive character.
That's more than I can say for some video game icons.
Just finished watching the Direct. Nintendo just announced Super Smash Bros for release this year.
The Internet had better prepare it's anus.
4812771
God damn it for five minutes I thought that was gonna be confirmed Bayonetta 3.
Damn you and your polite reminder that most people know Bayonetta from not-her-own-game, you British gentleman!
4812784
Bayonetta 3 is confirmed. Has been for a while. For myself, I will get 1 and 2 soon; sadly, I've only ever played the shitty PS3 port of 1.
Edit: Also, you should check out the Peach outfit in 2. I'm amazed that Nintendo signed off on that.
I think that Mari Shimazaki as the designer (for the first game at least, never tried the second and dont even know how bayonetta looks there heh) put it best.
" I think I was able to put my feelings into her design, and she ended up a strong female character"
Bayonetta is alluring because of it being either a secondary focus or no focus at all for her when designing the character , and i would say she did a awesome job. If she actually tried to go for "sexy" i imagine she would have ended up with a bland character instead.
4812788
It's available for 1 in the switch port as well.
Nintendo basically looked at Bayonetta and saw it was good.
Can't speak with regards to Bayonetta; I'm two generations behind when it comes to console games and this site eats up most of what would be my gaming time. With regards to Kill La Kill, yeah, skipping some of the first episodes might be in order, because the rest is an absolutely ludicrous delight.
I've always taken some issue with KLK, but if you have words to say against such issues, I will definitely listen. c.c
So, if I've understood correctly; Bayonetta is not an empty shell with a good aesthetic, nor a character with gratuitous sexiness applied to her, but instead a _character_ who is _also_ sexy.
And because of that her sexualized appearance is reasonable.
Remind me why people are complaining?
Also, I really need to get around to playing this game.
I think this review summed it up perfectly: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/bayonetta/
I'm still waiting for the PC version to go on sale because I can barely stand the loading times of my PS3 copy (they may have been shortened after patches, but they're EVERYWHERE).
I'll admit, the first thing that struck me when I first played it wasn't the (probably because, thanks to the buzz around the game, I kinda knew what I was going into), but the complete pure insanity (I mean, you start with a Joe Pesci-soundalike pissing on a grave along with a nun, and suddenly...angels and Fly Me To The Moon). I haven't seen a game revel so much in it's crazyness since Devil May Cry.
4812849
Because likable, more ordinary, positive lady character protagonists are still a superminority in gaming even moreso than they are in the film industry. Like, I get why people find Bayonetta annoying in the same way they find old=school bikini armor annoying. If you aren't already into games, stuff like that can make you feel like you don't belong in the room.
That said it's not as simple an issue as "this good" or "this bad". Bayonetta is both a pandering sexy archetype and a fun, dynamic and realized character.
You know, I recently wrote an article on the early women representations in fiction. I took Wonder Woman and Samus Aran (obviously), but I also added Cutie Honey. I thought about her not just because she's the first female lead in a manga/anime (second, if one counts Ribon no Kishi), but also as an example of a female character containing fanservice (trope codifier, if I got the research well) without it disrupting the storytelling.
Maybe I'm outstretching, but I feel Honey's style, besides influencing the magical girls genre (or creating it, depending on who you ask) is more or less an early version of Bayoneta's. What do you think?
4812916
Never seen Cutie Honey.
Tbh, Bayonetta descends a lot more from BDSM meets Devil May Cry than anything else.
4812794
Or she could save her sanity/hair and only watch Episode 7.
Did you mean: the in my head court case of Me v. Me over whether or not Citrus is worth anything at all or if it really is just a piece of garbage?
Anyway I second 4812794 with regards to Kill la Kill. The first few episodes are easily the low point of the show in terms of gross shit...though I feel like this has been discussed on your blog before, so I’ll shut up about it.
4812918
I was speaking more of thematic progression rather than direct influence, though. Well, I guess it's a matter of perspective, really.
4812758
4812765
I'm going to wonder out loud what proportion of this is tied up in the fact that she's a video game character, and specifically a video game protagonist. As such, she's got all of the agency that the player gives her, as opposed to a passive entertainment medium (like anime, from which the counterexample of KLK was drawn).
4813363
The thing is that Bayonetta isn't a roleplaying game, it's a twitchy action game. I do think that contributes (since it means Bayonetta needs to be strong, powerful, and able to cut through waves of enemies), but that's only part of it. Female characters in roleplaying games who are limited to bikini armor because that's the only option for lady characters are being objectified.
What makes Bayonetta stand out is that both iin the story and in gameplay, she's built around this sassy, sexy aesthetic where it's clear she enjoys being the center of attention. So when the camera takes random glamor shots during gameplay, it doesn't feel exploitative, it feels like she's showing off and playing to an audience as a performer instead of a passive fixture.
KlK on the other hand literally opens with Ryuko being forced into a sexy outfit she doesn't want to wear, being told she only has power if she wears that outfit, and begrudgingly wearing it against her own free choice. In other words, her agency is being negated because even when she consents, it's never enthusiastic. It's never "I want to do this because I like it", it's "I'll do this if I have to."
Those are two very different ways of approaching a sexualized character. Bayonetta likes herself the way she is. Given the choice, Ryuko would never have worn boob armor.
4813166
I can see the association with Cutey Honey. The show certainly helped to codify and establish certain industry tropes; particularly a number of fanservice tropes. Despite that, it was arguably less guilty of those tropes than its numerous followers, being more... innocent, perhaps, in its approach to them. The fanservice that did exist was not nearly as "in your face" and disruptive of the storytelling as it could have been, and certain has been in many other shows; and to some extent made sense in-universe.
4815119
I think it all comes down to whether the fanservice is part of the background as a stylistic choice, or attached to the narrative. I remember Bennett the Sage using a scene depicting a lesbian hitting on a girl as example. In Shin Cutey Honey, where Honey doesn't mind the approach at first, but quickly rejects it when it becomes invasive. Fans get their "girl on girl is hot" moment, but the character doesn't lose her personality and assertiveness because of it.
An occidental example I'm more familiar with, is Cortana's design from the Halo series. As technology advanced, her design evolved from female-ish hologram, to naked blue woman. It's kind of a carbon-date test seeing how an extra polygon at chest height became a piece of animation more complex than the entire character's moveset in the original.
What really kills it all is the official explanation. That being that Cortana's design is to distract the enemy. To put interlocutors at discomfort through being sexually aggressive. I call bullcrap on that on several levels. However, the one that unnerves me the most is the fact that people at Bungie (and Microsoft) stand by that statement. They don't see the problem in objectifying women down to making their sexuality a weapon, but they actually find it a good thing to do.
4815176
Honestly I read that and just paused because having seen Cortana's design, the lore is more awkward than the simple explanation that someone programmed an AI lady to project an attractive human female body. Which one makes more sense?
Speaking as someone who thinks girl on girl is hot, what you just described would straight turn me off. Invasive hitting on is a great way to kill the mood and kinda makes the moment sound creepier than intended. I'm not sure that's actually giving me what I wanted... at all?
4815325
It gets stupider (surprised that word actually exists) when you take in account the original game. There, Cortana was supposed to never even be seen by the enemy. The entire first act of Combat Evolved revolves around hiding and protecting her.
On that scene, it did start subtle. However, ass you put it, the moment it becomes invasive it becomes diservice. Fittingly enough, the characters in-universe react the same way, though.
4815176
I thought, in the canon, Cortana chose her image and based it off Dr. Halsey? I don’t recall it having to do with distracting the enemy but it has been some time since I read “Fall of Reach”
4817013
Sorry it took me a while to answer. Yes, her face and personality is based on Dr. Halsey. However, everything from the neck and down works under the following explanation:
https://www.videogamer.com/news/halos-cortana-appears-nude-to-give-her-the-upper-hand-says-franchise-director
It only gets creepier once you read the part that Cortana is and intelligent conversational strategist because she shows up naked. I have no words to describe how wrong does that sentence sound.
4817104
Okay that is a very big difference from the book...I think I’ll stick with book canon in my head as find it less disturbing, I dug out my copy of “The Fall of Reach” and found the parts detailing AIs and Cortana. Cortana was programmed with the best infiltration software and she was made specifically to fight the Covenant. Interestingly, Halsey notes that from certain angles she can see a skeletal structure within Cortana’s holographic projection.
4817148
Full agree here. Still, I prefer the earlier design (1 and 2). It looked more futuristic and in tone with Halo's style. Something like retro-futurism.
..and meanwhile IRL some female characters so overdo their parfume you started to think it really used as (male) repelent ....
Well, I think I have some problems with all this oversexualization, because .. it boils down to 'stupid males want stupid things labeled sex, and smart females capitalize on it'. Insult to both sides .... Also, badass female ...well, they unfortunately badass in a wrong way, for me. If males (in videogames) behave as unrealistic overmacho AND females in said games behave the same ... I can't see this as good. Being 2x more aggressive is not direction I like to move, myself or world. If females pushed (convinced, lured) to behave exactly like their patriarch masters - this is win for patriarchy, conceptually (patriarchs themselves may disagree loudly over fear of losing/sharing their power position, but they know for doing such things to each other, too). Conceptually, I'm not interested in 'same male shit, just inside female shape'. Also, 'but she liked it!" is very ..charged line of speech. Like, yes, this character want to show herself off in stereotypically-'sexual' way - but why? Because everything else in her universe (our home) considered second-grade? But this is old post, in 2020 lines of thinking may already progress ....