This can also occur with male characters, but my focus is on female representation as that is what I am familiar with and can relate to. The context of the scene is important but the delivery was more focused on portraying a character’s “physical features” rather than emotions, and here lies the issue. However, during this important scene the decision was made to have the camera focus on Miranda’s butt rather than anything of substance to help engage the player and push this powerful narrative and character depth. This is an important scene, and Miranda is sharing intimate details about her family and her life with the commander and in turn, the players. In Mass Effect 2, there is a scene where Miranda is talking to Commander Shepard about rescuing her family. It is clearly a camera angle used to focus on features that people may find an attraction too and enjoy looking at, but it also reduces the quality and respect for her character by making her entirely about her body. The issue lies when the game itself focuses on Miranda’s butt for no reason beyond simple sex appeal. It is perfectly fine for those individuals to express that attraction in conversation, online, etc. ![]() Let’s use Mass Effect for an example The character Miranda is beautiful and some may find her attractive. The problem arises when that same character is used explicitly in a sexual way for the sole purpose to gain that attention. ![]() Appreciation for a character’s look or design is completely fine. Especially when it comes to female characters in video games.Īttraction is simply “the action or power of evoking interest, pleasure, or liking for someone.” Everyone experiences this, especially in video games since they not only offer so many different types of characters, but technology allows for near unrealistic levels of beauty. This has sparked the debate about what is considered objectification and what is simply attraction or admiration for a character within a video game. And hence, the Mass Effect “butt-gate” was born. The other side of the debate was stating that scenes like this objectify the character with the sole purpose of focusing on her butt. On the one hand, people were saying to leave the game alone, claiming that this was censorship and that people are being “too sensitive” about this sort of thing. ![]() Naturally this became a topic of huge debate on whether or not this was necessary. This led the developers to adjust where the camera was during this discussion. During a personal and somber discussion with the character Miranda, the camera lingers on her rear end in a way that downplays the gravity of the scene. Of these changes, the one which stood out the most was not a change in character model, dialogue, or tone. ![]() Walters goes into detail about the female Shepherd and how “there was a lot of things that we could do across the trilogy to make that better, so that she’s a bit more on par with the male Shepherd”. Project director Mac Walters explained to Metro that the team wanted to provide all players with a more enhanced and overall better experience. On February 2nd, BioWare announced that they would be releasing “ Mass Effect Legendary Edition” which will feature all three original games with enhanced performance, visuals, and graphics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |