D&D General “‘Scantily Clad and Well Proportioned’: Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in the Gaming Worlds of TSR and Dungeons & Dragons.”

[abirdcall]

The man on the left looks scary, insecure, and like he's going to punch a hole in my drywall.

The man on the right looks cozy and confident.

 

[Remathilis]

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The man on the left looks scary, insecure, and like he's going to punch a hole in my drywall.

The man on the right looks cozy and confident.

I must admit I find it a touch humorous when men complain about being subjected to the demands of the Male Gaze. Women rarely have had a say in what society demands they look like, but you my dudes, you did this to YOURSELF!

(I do have sympathy for men who feel inadequate for not living up to the standard, but the whole notion that Wolverine isn't designed for the same type of male gaze that your average Maxim model was is deeply ironic).

 

[Remathilis]

And I have a new candidate for what painting I would have airbrushed on the side of my 1973 Chevrolet Van. Thank you.

Again, I love this art. The color and lighting are amazing l. But I harbor no delusions it's three white sheets of fabric and a dragon removed from your average Playboy centerfold.

 

[Sacrosanct]

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The man on the left looks scary, insecure, and like he's going to punch a hole in my drywall.

The man on the right looks cozy and confident.

They are meant to be completely different, to be fair.

Also, that cover on Good Housekeeping didn't age well. He's divorced...

 

[Bedrockgames]

It is Caldwell. You can always tell his paintings by how he paints gems.

That is how I tell his style apart as well lol

They are all the same, and a unique style of his. While I love Caldwell's art (my favorite D&D art is his cover of DL1), he is well known for wanting to paint scantily clad women. I think it was either Larry Elmore or Jeff Easley who told me a couple years ago that Clyde would volunteer to take the art assignments that had a women in a precarious scenario just to paint them.

I certainly buy that. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing though. Just like I wouldn't think it was bad if a female artist was particularly interested in drawing scantily clad men (that just might be something that appeals to them). Again I am not saying D&D ought to be beefcake and bikini chainmail art (they have to consider who their audience is and what audience they are trying to appeal to when they make those kinds of decisions as a company and I think these days a tamer style is more suited to the audience range----the company has also became more family friendly over time). I just don't blame the artist. I have a cousin who is in involved in fine arts and she tends to paint the female form

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, I love this art. The color and lighting are amazing l. But I harbor no delusions it's three white sheets of fabric and a dragon removed from your average Playboy centerfold.

TBH, the disappointing lack of dragons has always been one of Playboy’s biggest flaws.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Beefcake, cheesecake and the ratios thereof; is the miss the point, it is not the individual art pieces are good or bad or acceptable or not acceptable but uniformity of the art style and the uniformity of their depictions of men and women that is the issue.
That said, the above image and it female equivalents really grind my gears. Why partial armour? could he not afford a breastplate? Can he turn his head? Why a spike on the pauldron? Surely that restricts his arm movements.
why the armour plates directly on skin with no padding. That groin guard? Why no pants?

I don't think this is the strongest Caldwell piece, though not because of the lack of clothing (I think he was going for a sword and sandals vibe so it makes a certain amount of sense). But art doesn't have to be about realism or historical naturalism. This one is obviously more about showcasing Caramon's physique and highlighting the fact that he is forced to fight as a gladiator. It isn't always about whether the character's gear makes practical sense

 

[Steampunkette]

They are meant to be completely different, to be fair.

I mean... sort of? They're both designed to appeal to a specific subset of people through a specific method.

Muscle and Fitness through a masculine power fantasy of having tons of muscles.

Good Housekeeping through a feminine romantic fantasy of a sweet guy being gentle and happy.

On the topic of armor types in models, paintings, miniatures, etc: NEEDS MOAR JACK CHAINS.

Look at how staggeringly practical such a small amount of armor is! Sure it doesn't protect you from thrusts terribly well, but you have a weapon to parry. But big horizontal slashes on any side of the body are more likely to find metal than flesh!

Toss on a simple Breastplate to protect your torso and some arming gloves and you might not be wearing full plate but you'll be -well- protected!

And they were comparatively cheap, too!

 

[abirdcall]

They are meant to be completely different, to be fair.

Also, that cover on Good Housekeeping didn't age well. He's divorced...

Missing the point.

It isn't about whether the magazines are successful. The point is that they are targeted at different audiences. And it isn't about what it says on them either, magazines are mostly full of garbage. I posted it for the pictures.

 

[Mannahnin]

I am sure the ratio of it was more revealing images of women but he did have beefcake art of male figures too, like this one

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Pretty certain that was a Caldwell image

It is. As folks mentioned later, it's from Time of the Twins, in which Caramon Majere winds up fighting as a gladiator in armor which is specifically described in the text as impractical and to show off the musculature of the gladiator.

Caldwell, however, notably still makes it an image of stern strength, more a male power fantasy than a woman's erotic one. Note that he also paints Crysania in the background with a lot of flesh exposed, which is not how she's described in the text, to my recollection. She's a straitlaced and conservative priestess.

That's just not female-aimed though (or even gay male aimed) - there's nothing about it which can support that analysis. It's beefcake, but it's aimed at impressing heterosexual men and you can tell because there's zero sexualization. Whereas there's tons of sexualization in his imagery of women.

Yup. Great post overall, just trimming to the immediately relevant part.

Compare and contrast, say, with Caldwell's cover for Artifact of Evil, in which he depicts the female Cavalier Dierdre of Hardby, a character who wears regular plate mail in the narrative, as wearing basically metal lingerie, complete with a decorative circular plate at the bottom of the "V" in her "breastplate", visually implying a zipper pull. Caldwell completes the straight male fantasy by depicting Thief-Acrobat Gord (who, TBF, is certainly muscular like a gymnast, but short and lithe and flexible per the text) as a bodybuilder.

I can't imagine that the all male groups I mostly played TSR D&D with in the 80s and 90s were rare outliers in not making sexual violence and misogyny integral to the gaming while still having plenty of violent actions in our gaming.

If you saw frequent use of rape and violence against female NPCs in your gaming that is pretty horrible, my condolences on the bad experiences.

I don't think groups which didn't have sexual violence were necessarily rare outliers, but distasteful and misogynistic stuff was definitely out there, especially in all-male groups. When I was growing up I encountered a few gamers like this, though thankfully my regular groups were better. Those still definitely had some sexist jokes, though we got better once we were playing with some women and girls.