Breaking down borders in video games.
Bayonetta – some initial impressions
Before starting Bayonetta I had some strong expectations. I expected it to be a difficult action based game, the main character to be sexually objectified, and the game to include numerous thinly veiled references to sex and sexuality. I had seen screen shots of the game and read some impressions online but had not seen any video footage of the gameplay.
Silhouette of Bayonetta from the game manual. This image was used to illustrate the move named Stiletto. It shows Bayonetta wearing high heels.
I was wondering if her character design was just another example of objectifying females or if this a game that shows female sexuality as a positive thing? For me that line is determined by how the character is written as a whole. When a female warrior is defined by the breadth of her experience (her power in battle, her thoughts, her actions, and her sexuality, her interactions with other characters) she becomes a fully realized character. When the female warrior is described solely by her battle powers and her sex appeal she is a one dimensional character. If a character’s only role is to be the sexy figure that can beat up some bad guys she is reduced to nothing more than an object for the male gaze. She is there only to battle and look good for straight male gamers as she does so rather than being a truly interesting character.
So this past weekend I sat down with my partner and two of our friends to play Bayonetta. At the very beginning I was very happy to see a variety of difficulty settings. The inclusion of a Very Easy setting is welcomed by this gamer. There ends any positive impressions our group had with the game.
Our description of the first 30 minutes of Bayonetta is that the game is the perfect visual example of male gaze. The high heel silhouette from the manual is completely accurate. The guns actually attached to the back of a pair high heels. When you are first introduced to Bayonetta she is in the guise of a nun. To remove that disguise she is sent hovering in the air like a character from Sailor Moon and her outfit is cut off her body. These cuts are up one leg, on her butt, and one on her chest. The camera is focused on either her rear or her chest in all non fighting scenes. Even when she is speaking the camera is centered on her chest, complete with erect nipples, rather than focusing on her face. The targeting icon is a lipstick imprint of a kiss. When the character stands still she does a modeling pose of one leg forward, bent slightly at the knee, arched back, chest pushed up. Her disproportionately long legs just add to the whole image of sexualized female video game character. This video from GameTrailers.com does a good job of showing how the camera lingers on her chest and rear and shows the exaggerated leg length: In one cut scene she pulled out a lollipop and started sucking on it. At one point Bayonetta is attacking some enemies and is flying through the air with her legs splayed. The viewer is aimed directly between her legs as she flies toward the camera and when she collides with the enemies she wraps her legs around them to initiate the attack. Bayonetta’s sexuality was incredibly over the top to the point at where became off putting for the 4 of us to watch. The emphasis on her rear should not be surprising as the modeler for the character said: “I really wanted to get Bayonetta’s backside perfect. I guess I am into that sort of thing…”
So, what are my impressions of the game? Well, after the first 30 minutes all I knew of Bayonetta is that she could fight and that she was there to look sexy presumably for straight male gamers. The excessive number of times I saw close ups of her butt and her chest was off putting for me. Does Bayonetta become more than a sex symbol as the game goes on? I cannot say. The camera spent 30 minutes leering at this character and I could not spend anymore time in that world. All I can say for sure is that this game was not made for me as the intended audience.
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about 2 months ago - 14 comments
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about 6 months ago - 29 comments
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about 5 months ago
It only gets worse after she whips out the BDSM finishing moves. It’s a male wish fulfillment game all right, just for submissives instead of dominators.
about 5 months ago
What I’ve heard is that Bayonetta exaggerates the whole thing to the point of self-parody where it becomes ridiculous and mocking instead of titilating. Of course, I haven’t played the game, so…
about 5 months ago
@ Doug S. While playing we were discussing if it is over the top in a campy way. One of my friends mentioned that campy to her means something is exaggerated and made funny but it is done so in order to be able to discuss things that are often unpleasant topics or otherwise unpalatable to others. For example, the movie Jeffrey has over the top stereotypes of gay men but the movie itself is about the tolls of a relationship when one person has AIDS. But a movie like Bruno doesn’t really discuss any deeper topics and therefore the over the top representations of gay men in that movie are just cruel and hurtful. I had never heard of campy being described that way but I really like that definition. I only played 30 minutes of Bayonetta so I do not know if the over the top version of the character is campy by that standard… but that first half hour did not make me hopeful. Frankly, that camera felt voyeuristic to me and I didn’t want to keep watching it.
about 5 months ago
Y’know, I think the comparison use with the movies Jeffrey and Bruno makes a nice, succinct example. That and your friend and I must be tapping into the same wavelength.
Personally, taking the game and opinions as to whether or not its camp or camp used as an excuse my mind asks whether the content is just display or actually engaging me.
-Ani8
about 5 months ago
Gunthera1 this is a great description of camp. I know this is not an anti-oppression 101 blog, but maybe when great definitions/explanations like these appear in comments or posts we could also collect them under the “helpful resources” section of the blog? It would be great if this explanation of camp did not become lost after the post moves down the archives in a few weeks…
about 5 months ago
I’m so sorry to hear that. I haven’t checked this game out, since I don’t have an Xbox or PS3, but I was happy to hear about a game with a female protagonist. I had seen some videos and suspected she was built to be eye candy for straight guys. What a waste…
I still would like to play it, although it seems like another generic action game. Just need to find someone who has an Xbox and the game.
about 5 months ago
I haven’t played it, but I’ve certainly heard from many female players who have enjoyed playing it and felt that the over-the-top wackiness of the sex appeal combined with the ridiculous power of the character made it feel fun and freeing to them.
I don’t do Xbox at all though so I can only go on secondhand commentary.
about 5 months ago
In Which Moira Gets Technical Like Whoa. Um, ‘scuse.
Camp is ultimately a commentary by a marginalized group on privileged society’s flawed perceptions of them. The history of camp goes back to Quentin Crisp (and in some ways Oscar Wilde) and other gay men who took het society’s perception of them as inherently effeminate and ran the fuck off with it. It is, in the jargon, a reaction formation to oppression. Similarly, dialects and complex slang–Cockney and African-American Vernacular English being examples–are not degenerate forms of ‘proper’ English (this is the view of the privileged who claim their mode of communication as correct)–but are again reactions to oppression, ways to mark themselves as distinct from and in opposition to the society that harms them.
By definition the actions of the privileged cannot be camp. Sasha Baron Cohen, being straight and one seriously privileged dude on most axes (he could legitimately make camp related to anti-Semitic perceptions though I’ve not heard of him doing so), was not doing camp when he made Brüno. Brüno was straight-up exploitation.
So, Bayonetta. It’s not camp. It can’t be camp. It could be ironic. It could be a deconstruction of the use of the male gaze in video game creation but my impression from the media available on it–interviews with some of the creative team and whatall–suggest that they were working in earnest. They meant every curve and jiggle.
about 5 months ago
“They meant every curve and jiggle.”
Yeah, that’s a helpful line there. Because while people talk about it and make it clear they meant the sexiness to be a little silly and draw attention to its own ridiculousness, they also seem to want it to be viewed on the just-sexy level as well.
about 5 months ago
I am glad to hear more people behind that argument that campy does mean more than just “over the top” or “exaggerated”. That is such a helpful definition for drawing the line between camp and just cruel caricatures.
They certainly meant every curve and jiggle. Just as the modeler said, they made sure to get her butt “perfect” and the camera work sure focused on that aspect.
about 5 months ago
Oh good. I’m glad you found that useful; I was worried about coming off explainy.
about 5 months ago
I also think what’s important as well is how the game was consumed by the target audience it targeted. I remember Kotaku having a TON of articles on Bayonetta with nothing more than showing off the T&A. It was noticed. So I immediately tossed this game into the exploitation bin and moved on.
about 5 months ago
What is the freeing part of it? I am confused about what you mean by that.
about 5 months ago
I can’t tell you what *I* mean by it because as I said, I have not played the game! I am reporting what I’ve heard from others, I can’t go too deeply into trying to guess what their motivations are.
(I mean, I could make some guesses, but I could be way wrong.)
about 5 months ago
That about sums up my feelings on the game. I DLed the demo (which was called “Bayonetta: First Climax Demo”…kinda tips you off right there, eh?) and was fairly turned off by the whole enterprise. Her standing still pose and the way she walks were pretty bad, but it was the finisher/super move that she pulled out in the boss that really sealed it for me: her hair/clothing turns into a fanged beast and attacks the boss, conveniently leaving her naked and posing sexually while her hair does it’s thing. It was crass and frankly embarrassing to play.
about 5 months ago
I agree that it felt crass and embarrassing. It was good to have friends there with me that were mocking it. Otherwise I am not sure I would have made it as far (30 minutes is now far?) as I did. It really turned me off. I am NOT the target demographic.
about 5 months ago
It only gets worse. In an attempt to outdo themselves, they keep upping the ante here. At one point she has to progress in puzzles by twirling around pole objects like a stripper (which is one way she can use polearms as a weapon as well). It’s as if they tried to think up every sexual way to exploit her and proceeded to do so. It was a game whose design I found outdated, and whose theme I found abhorrent.
about 5 months ago
I liked Bayonetta for its very addictive game play.
At first i thought of the character a the standard “tough oversexed women” fetish witch are not so really different from characters like dragon ages Morrigan, mass effect 2 or good old Lara Croft.
Off course Bayonetta with all the stripper and bondage moves is totally over the top. But most of the time i tried too ignored this.
But I came to a point where the game really disgusted me. There are some BDSM themed finishing moves where you execute the asexual “angels” very vivid. This is in strange sense more funny then offensive.
But later you encounter the overfeminine “Joy” angels who are executed in a “rape like” mini cutscene.
(At the end of the video around 1.45)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NaUVRwAky4
What are you thoughts on that?
For me this really crossed the line.
about 5 months ago
It’s fascinating the amount of disgust that Bayonetta as a game has generated online.
I would like to make a small correction in your article though, Byonetta’s modeller is a woman not a man. The person you quoted is the game director – Hideki Kamiya. He did have final say into the design of the character, but at the end of the day, the modeller and character designer did all the work for Bayonetta and her Umbra witch counterpart Jeanne (the Virgil to Bayonetta’s Dante).
On the subject of the torture themes and skimpy outfits etc. in my own playthrough of the game I felt that it was done with tongue firmly in cheek as most of the sequences are quite ridiculous. Having said that, this is indeed a game made by men and I am a heterosexual guy so I guess maybe it wouldn’t offend me.
I do think that as a character, she does fit the bill for what she is supposed to – sadistic, sexual, and to my mind piss-taking. Bayonetta struts her stuff for her own amusement. She’s fighting angels who would be expected to be prudish and so comes out all ‘sex blazing’ and BDSM as if to mock their very existence.
Later on in the game the character does show a bit more depth.
I do think that it is the best game of its type with a huge depth of interplay in its systems, it’s just a shame that so many people have been put off by its presentation, especially when it was done with what I have gathered to be a smirk throughout.
To me offensive is Dante’s Inferno not this.
about 5 months ago
I did not quote Hideki Kamiya in my piece at all. I said “The emphasis on her rear should not be surprising as the modeler for the character said: “I really wanted to get Bayonetta’s backside perfect. I guess I am into that sort of thing…””
If you click on the link in that section of the post it takes you to a blog post which starts with “I am Kenichiro “Yoshi” Yoshimura, the modeler for Bayonetta.. ” I also did not mention a gender for that individual since I was unsure if it was a male or a female.
So what exactly are you correcting?
about 5 months ago
Bah, this is why I shouldn’t post when I am tired. Just skimmed over what you wrote at that part and kind of merged it with what others said online. Also, I should make an actual correction. It is bayonetta’s character designer that’s female not the modeller.
Again apologies for the nonsense text.