R&C Art, the Women of R&C

[Gloombunny]

I preferred to believe that Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella were only tales for children and not tools for gender opression...

They're both. Where do people get their ideas about gender roles? How do cultural ideas and values transmit themselves from one generation to the next? The stories we tell our children are a major part of it.

Horacio, who will hesitate about telling old faery tales to his daughter anymore...

It's rarely a bad idea to think about what messages one might be giving one's children, even unintentionally. Especially unintentionally.

 

[Rechan]

I preferred to believe that Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella were only tales for children and not tools for gender opression...

The point of children's stories is to teach lessons to children. Those lessons are often about how to live in our world, or what to expect.

After all, that's where "The moral of the story" comes from - fables and tales with messages.

What will be next, explaining how Little Red Hood story is a warning about pervert child molesters ?

Close.

Aside from the obvious "Don't talk to strangers", Little Red Riding Hood has multiple interpretations, from Natural Cycles like the Sun and the Moon to Sexual Awakening.

 

[Aloïsius]

What will be next, explaining how Little Red Hood story is a warning about pervert child molesters ?

It is. And not a subtle one, at that. Of course, the modern versions of Little Red Hood are less explicit. But remember the conclusion of the original fable (by Charles Perrault, where Little Red Hood is eaten by the wolf) :
"Children,
Especially attractive, well bred young ladies,
Should never talk to strangers,
For if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf.
I say wolf, but there are various kinds of wolves.
There are also those who are charming,
Quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet,
Who pursue young women at home and in the streets.
And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves
Who are the most dangerous ones of all."
And I remember another version explaining that the more dangerous wolves are those walking on two legs..


And then, there is the D&D 4e version of Little Red Hood, where Little Red Hood is a young tiefling warlock that blast the werewolf with a fell ray, before asking her buddy cleric of Asmodeus to raise her grand-ma from the dead, so that she can have her personal zombie too.

 

[Horacio]

With my Little Red Hood I was trying to be rhetoric, the answer was in the question

It's rarely a bad idea to think about what messages one might be giving one's children, even unintentionally. Especially unintentionally.

I understand that fairy tales are like fables, they have a lesson. Sometimes that lesson is outdated, as most of tales are centuries old. But the tales itself deserved to be told.

Not telling Cinderella or Sleepy Beauty tales to children because their lessons are not the kind of lessons we want for XXIth century children can be good from a politically correct point of view, but they will be losing a lot from a cultural background point of view.

I don't know what's the right way, but personally I prefer telling classic fairy tales to my daughter than telling her Sponge Bob politically correct silly tales.

YMMV, of course

And then, there is the D&D 4e version of Little Red Hood, where Little Red Hood is a young tiefling warlock that blast the werewolf with a fell ray, before asking her buddy cleric of Asmodeus to raise her grand-ma from the dead, so that she can have her personal zombie too.

ROFLOL!

Oh merde! My coffee has been spilled over my screen thanks to you!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't know what's the right way, but personally I prefer telling classic fairy tales to my daughter than telling her Sponge Bob politically correct silly tales.

Note that SpongeBob isn't necessarily a whole lot "better." You've got, what, one or two female characters in all of Bikini Bottom? One is an alien squirrel who rarely appears and when she does her "tough girl" nature is exaggerated? One is a whiney teenage shark who needs dates to the prom and talks about boys all the time?

It's just an awareness, really, of where a lot of our culture is coming from. Throughout history, many of our stories have been told about women putting them in a different kind of archetype than men, and those archetypes are so long-lasting that they're practically ubiquitous. In a game like D&D, which is based on evocative old legends and stories and archetypes, this is particularly relevant. The game in general has progressed by leaps and bounds to embrace new female archetypes equal to those of men, but the art overall has more moments of cheesecake girls than of cheesecake guys (though I still say Buckles McGee is the most cheesecake of all the pictures in the PHB3e). If that's all they see, there is a significant set of women who will laugh at the absurdity of it, and maybe not be so into playing the game, so to consciously move away from that is a laudable goal for the game.

However, people are very right when they say this is a fantasy game and cheesecake is a fantasy and there's a lot of people totally okay with it, who don't see it as necessarily absurd so much as just part of a style and look.

And that, combined with mostly male artists and the strong archetype-based nature of the game, is going to lead to some pictures that are going to cause those chuckles. The game at least has moved on to "less of them, and some of them featuring men, too." I don't think 4e is going to be any different, really, but the art direction presented in R&C shows an emphasis on practicality and cohesiveness that was missing from a significant number of the 3e Core's art, so I think they're STILL moving in a direction of "Less chainmail bikini, less Buckles McGee, more plate armor, more dwarf women" for the new edition. That said, I still think the Succubus is going to be ridiculously sexualized, but the succubus is based on the archetype of the "controlling, evil woman who manipulates you with beauty and leaves you weak and drained because of it." I would expect the Nymph to be so, too, because the nymph is based on the archetype of "highly desirable untouched virgin wilderness and girls."

I'm sure there will be some women and men who huff at the very archaic notion of these feminine icons. I'm sure there will be some women and men (maybe a majority) who don't bat an eye over it. That doesn't mean that the huffers are hyper-PC misogynist police who see offense in a little innocent cheesecake, and that doesn't mean that those who don't have a problem are anti-feminist patriarchal chauvinists. It just means that people have different levels of tolerance for what we all basically perceive is a bad thing (treating women purely like sex objects). None of us, I think, want to treat our women like the ancient Greeks or medieval Europeans did, and we all want to use their cool stories to influence the games we play. Where we move the cultural goalposts on this is going to be largely a subjective issue, and the reasons for where we have our goalposts are much, much broader than a discussion on D&D art can really tackle. CM, as pointed out, would be the better place for the tale, but even there you're not likely to get any farther than "people have different opinions that are all strongly held." No one interpretation is universally the right one.

 

[Aloïsius]

That said, I still think the Succubus is going to be ridiculously sexualized,

If it's not, then it's not a Succubus. A non-sexualised succubus is an abberation.

 

[Kaffis]

I do find it interesting that so many people who don't give a hoot about reality in their gaming and would allow for buster swords, wildly unweildy weapons, silly spikey armors and PCs who can fall 200 feet and still fight the dragon in front of them have a problem with the impracticality of boobarmor. Curious how the practicality of armor and reality in fantasy should become such a vital concern once women's breasts, thighs and stomachs are at issue.

The motivation for my vital concern when womens' breasts, thighs, and stomachs are at issue is the preservation of those lovely bits of skin! Protect those beautiful bodies! But then, what good is protecting them if I don't get to see a bit of that skin every now and then?

D&D "medieval fantasy" isn't about historical accuracy, you're correct there. But it's not necessarily about mindlessly recycling outdated themes and tale-types, either. A lot of D&D "types" are really just modern-world "types" repurposed. The frail wizard is the stereotypical bookworm from high school, with a healthy dose of revenge. Obviously the women of D&D can't be "realistic" medieval women warriors, because by and large those didn't exist. So instead they seem to be sort of "modern woman" in chainmail: trying to balance sex appeal with practicality.

Thus, the 4e women sneak a plunging neckline or a bare midriff into their plate mail at times. It may not be completely practical, but neither are the oh-so-phallic spikes sprouting out of their male peers' armor, and they see no reason why they should pay what could literally be a king's ransom, tens of thousands of gold pieces, to have magical armor specially crafted for them only to have it make them look like undergrown boys with overlong hair.

This is really insightful and has really struck a chord with me. I think I'm in concurrence with you in embracing the 4e aesthetic of saying "Let's all have our subtle nods to sex appeal without completely throwing practicality to the wind." I think the art in R&C has done a good job of balancing good coverage and practical material choices with a few strategically placed gaps to make the image appealing and easy on the eyes. And I don't mind, and would even encourage, the application of that standard to both genders.

I do also like that the evolution of D&D art has realized that we need not limit the coverage of the chainmail bikinis to approximately six square inches to be sexy and attractive. Hell, we've even realized that some alternative builds can be appealing, see the excellent dwarves. And that's a good thing, in my eyes.

So bring on the well-armored ladies! And the men! But don't be shy if this guy over here couldn't find vambraces, and must show off his well-muscled arms, or if this woman over here exposes a midriff when she crouches -- both are welcome, and excellent levels of concession to sex appeal without turning the game into Loincloths and Lingerie...

 

[I'm A Banana]

If it's not, then it's not a Succubus. A non-sexualised succubus is an abberation.

Well, yeah, that's kind of my point. Succubi were inventions of gynophobic medieval (and earlier) religious folks who firmly believed that Eve's temptation in the Garden Of Eden was because women have inherently weaker wills then men and that it was a man's duty to resist a woman's temptation (and a woman's duty to not be tempting). It became a part of the game because the game harkens back to the myths of the olden days -- myths firmly founded on views about women that we no longer hold, in general, as a society, here in much of the westernized world. Sexuality is a part of that. It can't be ignored without destroying the archetype.

Which is an example of the reason why a game like D&D will ALWAYS have a measure of semi-sexually-explicit/semi-chauvanistic artwork in it. The archetype isn't limited to the succubus and the nymph, they're just the baldest examples. The female wizard, the princess that needs saving, the Cinderellas and the Red Riding Hoods and the Alices in Wonderland inherited that as a historical reality, and since we've inherited those tales and archetypes (and use them in our games), we've got 'em, too.

Which is, I guess, my long-winded way of saying the PC Police are pretty rediculous if they're looking to banish objectified/patricized art from D&D entirely. It ignores what D&D is and the history that it draws from. Much more rational and workable is the opinion of Doombunny and those like her who say to embrace that old timey stuff, but embrace the new stuff, too, and the new stuff can definately be more "positive." And, heck, you could even plumb some of the more positive role models of history, religion, and myth. Joan d'Arc leaps to my mind first, and even Cleopatra (despite her hyper-sexualized portrayal as the exotic seducer, she WAS a potent and effective ruler) ranks up there. Exploring other cultures gets you more. The disadvantage is that many of these are very much stereotyped women's roles, but it's a game about archetypes, so I think working with that will get you more than working against it, like being the strong, violent, raging barbarian will get you more than trying to be some sort of educated "noble savage," or even a simple member of a hunter-gatherer people with stone age technology.

The "empowered woman" is pretty fresh for us as a culture, indeed, pretty fresh for a lot of humanity, so it has less archetypal weight, but the stories we create with these games are modern ones, using the past without being a slave to it, which gives us the opportunity to create new archetypes, work with recent cultural developments, and broaden the scope of what is possible in our shared mythos.

 

[kennew142]

It's rarely a bad idea to think about what messages one might be giving one's children, even unintentionally. Especially unintentionally.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the messages in the stories and artwork I expose my children to. Some of the books I thought were great when I was a teenager, I would never encourage my children to read. I wouldn't stop them, or actively discourage them, but I wouldn't encourage them.

My seven year old twins (a boy and a girl) are just starting to play SWSE (with me as GM). I have to say that I'm really glad that the Star Wars minis have plenty of sanely dressed female characters. I will start them on D&D when the new edition comes out.

My objection isn't to sexy art in D&D (and I think the 4e artwork does a pretty job at balancing different styles). I just think that boob armor and chainmail bikinis look stupid and impractical. There is a difference between going into battle wearing light or no armor, and wearing heavy armor with some of the vital bits exposed.

Witches, sorcerers and other non-armored characters can dress as sexily as they want when adventuring. Characters relying on armor, should have reliable armor.

I also would welcome more artwork depicting social situations and other scenes where armor isn't necessary. IMO, this is the venue for sexy artwork (for both genders).

I also dislike spiky armor. The best and most realistic example I've seen of it (in textual format) is in an Eberron novel, where the warforged villain with armor spikes gets stuck to the wooden floor, and the hero keeps smashing him down until his spikes are so deep in the wood that he can't get out.

 

[kennew142]

Not telling Cinderella or Sleepy Beauty tales to children because their lessons are not the kind of lessons we want for XXIth century children can be good from a politically correct point of view, but they will be losing a lot from a cultural background point of view.

I don't know what's the right way, but personally I prefer telling classic fairy tales to my daughter than telling her Sponge Bob politically correct silly tales.

When my children were younger, I also read them fairy tales. (They're more fond of Harry Potter, et al. now). I usually followed it up with something along the lines of, when this story was first told, people thought women had to wait around for a prince to save them. We know better now.

I would never deprive my children of folk/fairy tales. They are important to understanding our own culture. I would, however, shy away from modern stories that expressed the same ideas of gender and sexuality.

As a teacher (Middle School Latin, History, Mythology), I believe that when dealing with children, context is everything.