Sin to Win: A Big Loser?
Why the outcry over Dante's Inferno's Comic-Con Contest can go to hell.
By Liana K, GamingExcellence
Posted August 14, 2009
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Well damn it, the one year I don't go to Comic-Con, I miss out on being officially designated the hottest girl there!
I'm referring (jokingly) to Dante's Inferno's now notorious "Sin to Win" contest in San Diego. Yes, an apology has been issued by EA. Yes, they completely misjudged their audience. But the whole debacle opened up a can of worms that's actually offended me more than the original contest did.
Check out this quote from Destructoid, who denounced the contest with the headline "EA to prostitute its booth babes for you, the customer", and tell me this isn't part of the problem, instead of part of the solution:
One the one hand, the job description for "model" opens women up to this sort of thing: models exist, inherently, to be objectified and sell products. Obviously, these girls don't have any moral opposition to it, or they wouldn't have taken their clothes off and signed EA's contract (not necessarily in that order.)
Great, so if you're a convention model, you're automatically a slut who is nothing but a collection of sex organs. Excuse me? This defends us how? And who said these women were naked?
Other headlines include "Harrass a Booth Babe" (Mashable) "be a ‘willing' victim of mass acts of sexual harassment" (Geek Girls Rule), and "EA puts sexual bounty on the heads of its own booth babes" (Ars Technica)
To all you well-meaning "champions" of us booth babes and cosplayers, kiss my half-naked, metal-bikini-clad ass.
Anyone in their right mind knew that EA had to be kidding with their advertised prize of "the hottest girl at Comic-Con. Dinner, Booty, and More". Those like GamingAngels who say that the campaign is sexist are right, but it is not sexist outside of the norms of society, and at the very least they are rightly identifying this sexism as a sin.
There is no getting around the reality that this was, in essence, a "men-only" contest, but that, again, is not outside North American tradition. Mother's Day contests, mom and daughter contests, brides-only events, ladies nights, and contests exclusively for women filmmakers, writers, photographers, and businesspeople happen all the time without hew and cry. In fact, the leiasmetalbikini.com events I participate in are women-only. I'd love to say that no one has complained about this common sense rule intended to maintain a respectful environment. Sadly, they have. Sometimes the masculist movement, like its feminist counterpart, can be extremely stupid.
There's no saying women couldn't have entered the EA contest if they took pictures with other women; most women just didn't want to. The contest doesn't really work with male photo subjects, because while booth babes are all over the place, "stall studs" really don't exist yet.
Granted, the sexism issue is a complex and thorny one, because gaming is still overwhelmingly male, like beer sales and jock straps. That, however, doesn't make the degrading of women acceptable, and far, FAR too often we are just props in gaming. But what I've seen of Dante's Inferno, the game avoids this: hooray! Fat, ugly women exist in the Inferno, if nearly nowhere else in gaming. It's about bloody time. It would take me a thesis-length paper to explain why the elimination of feminine grotesquery from video games is wrong and harmful to women.
Furthermore, ladies, I know how we talk about the men we objectify. We're hardly virtuous. We just lust in different formats. You know, like boyband concerts? George Clooney movies? Slash fiction? Dante says that hypocrites get sent to the eighth circle of hell. In case you're not sure, that's the second worst circle.
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Latest Comments (Forum View)
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Snes - August 28, 2009 5:36 AM ET |
The FIRST article about the whole sin-to-win contest that makes the right points. Everybody is just pissed off about the wrong things. My compliments! :)
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