To begin this post, I'd like to mention some context.
Enter class last week: The class is commercial writing. I'm attempting to write a PSA geared towards youth on distracted driving.
I decide to make an ad based off a happenstance that my cousin claims he saw on the way to work. This happenstance is a daily fender bender at a certain street corner that always seemed to be caused by a distracted female driver.
I make an ad about it. The Prof makes her way around the classroom, checking on people's work to see what ideas are being relayed. (And to make sure plagiarism isn't occurring.) Upon reading mine, she gets uppity and asks why mine specifically has a female driver as the one causing the accident. I try to explain my basis with zero avail.
I rewrite the ad to make the person who caused the accident neutral in gender, because I do agree that it unintentionally contained sexism.
This event got me questioning how sexist my ideals are. Which led to the question of how sexist my creative works are.
If your mind is like mine, you probably immediately jumped to Jenny's Show.
Jenny's Show is an 'Interactive' flash movie about a girl named Jenny who strips for the viewer. She begins by saying she'll be 'your entertainment tonight, if you know what I mean', then proceeds to remove her top. She continues by removing her bra, but before her breasts are shown, Ric Olzow pops up and blocks them, asking what's going on. Then the screen changes to 'LOL', and goes back to main menu.
In my opinion (so you know you can stop reading here if you want to), There is no context on why Jenny is stripping. She simply states she'll be your entertainment, which could imply she's made the decision to strip herself. She then proceeds to strip herself, with no outside pressures telling her to. She never appears upset or distraught about losing clothes.
She does however get blocked before her breasts are exposed. If not for that occurrence being used as a punchline, this could be seen as body shaming.
As well, when tied to the male author, it could be seen that Jenny is the author's (that's how I'm referring to me k) puppet and he's forcing her to strip for the audience.
The subject matter can be argued as 'using female sexual stripping to gain viewers'. All these reasons tie into sexist ideals.
Whether the movie is sexist or not ultimately comes down to how it is perceived. It has a punchline, therefore it can be seen as a joke about expections of seeing girls strip purely for sexual pleasure.Whether that translates through however depends on the viewer.
If you've called Jenny's Show sexist, you've likely pointed a finger at Jenny's game as well.
A simple "dress-up" game, you can change Jenny's appearance, such as make up and hair colour. However, when attempting to alter her clothes, she gets upset and throws a GameCube at the viewer.
As you continue to mess with her clothing, she gets more upset, until she actually 'kills' the viewer. (Implied to be Ric Olzow by the face on the game over screen)
The content is again perception based. The point of the game seems to be getting killed for trying to strip Jenny. It is a less risque game, but the content still uses sexuality of a woman as it's basis, thus could still be classified as sexist. However, it again pokes at perceived expectations, which instead shines a light on sexism in society. Therefore, underlying messages could be classified as not making the game sexist, and instead, actually presenting a case about a societal construct.
Since we're on a roll with the Jenny games, the third and final (at this point) jenny game to question is the infamous Jenny's Quiz.
The formula changes, instead of the game being about Jenny and her sexuality, it claims Jenny to be a master of quizzes.
She is antagonized in this game, which could either be perceived as misogynistic since she's seen as an enemy, or can be perceived as empowering as the 'Final Boss' role is often claimed in games by male characters. The final boss is often seen as the 'toughest, strongest, most difficult' which again could be said to compliment Jenny positively. One could also classify however that having her being 'most difficult' could be alluding to the stereotype of females being "difficult."
(However that's a far stretching generalization that is more likely to be classified as sexist, so in this case would not add to the argument about Jenny being final boss as sexist.)
In the final bit of the game (spoilers warning I warned you k), the joke of Jenny showing her breasts returns, in allusion to the previous games. Again it point to sexist ideals, however as done before, Jenny is blocked at the last second by Ric Olzow again. It therefore is equal to Jenny's Show in being classifiable as sexist. (Which means it is again whether a joke translates to the viewer correctly.)
In conclusion, though not done in a particularly clear way, the Jenny Games seem to attempt to gain awareness on sexism and sexist ideologies, as opposed to condoning them.
Enter class last week: The class is commercial writing. I'm attempting to write a PSA geared towards youth on distracted driving.
I decide to make an ad based off a happenstance that my cousin claims he saw on the way to work. This happenstance is a daily fender bender at a certain street corner that always seemed to be caused by a distracted female driver.
I make an ad about it. The Prof makes her way around the classroom, checking on people's work to see what ideas are being relayed. (And to make sure plagiarism isn't occurring.) Upon reading mine, she gets uppity and asks why mine specifically has a female driver as the one causing the accident. I try to explain my basis with zero avail.
I rewrite the ad to make the person who caused the accident neutral in gender, because I do agree that it unintentionally contained sexism.
This event got me questioning how sexist my ideals are. Which led to the question of how sexist my creative works are.
If your mind is like mine, you probably immediately jumped to Jenny's Show.
Jenny's Show is an 'Interactive' flash movie about a girl named Jenny who strips for the viewer. She begins by saying she'll be 'your entertainment tonight, if you know what I mean', then proceeds to remove her top. She continues by removing her bra, but before her breasts are shown, Ric Olzow pops up and blocks them, asking what's going on. Then the screen changes to 'LOL', and goes back to main menu.
In my opinion (so you know you can stop reading here if you want to), There is no context on why Jenny is stripping. She simply states she'll be your entertainment, which could imply she's made the decision to strip herself. She then proceeds to strip herself, with no outside pressures telling her to. She never appears upset or distraught about losing clothes.
She does however get blocked before her breasts are exposed. If not for that occurrence being used as a punchline, this could be seen as body shaming.
As well, when tied to the male author, it could be seen that Jenny is the author's (that's how I'm referring to me k) puppet and he's forcing her to strip for the audience.
The subject matter can be argued as 'using female sexual stripping to gain viewers'. All these reasons tie into sexist ideals.
Whether the movie is sexist or not ultimately comes down to how it is perceived. It has a punchline, therefore it can be seen as a joke about expections of seeing girls strip purely for sexual pleasure.Whether that translates through however depends on the viewer.
If you've called Jenny's Show sexist, you've likely pointed a finger at Jenny's game as well.
A simple "dress-up" game, you can change Jenny's appearance, such as make up and hair colour. However, when attempting to alter her clothes, she gets upset and throws a GameCube at the viewer.
As you continue to mess with her clothing, she gets more upset, until she actually 'kills' the viewer. (Implied to be Ric Olzow by the face on the game over screen)
The content is again perception based. The point of the game seems to be getting killed for trying to strip Jenny. It is a less risque game, but the content still uses sexuality of a woman as it's basis, thus could still be classified as sexist. However, it again pokes at perceived expectations, which instead shines a light on sexism in society. Therefore, underlying messages could be classified as not making the game sexist, and instead, actually presenting a case about a societal construct.
Since we're on a roll with the Jenny games, the third and final (at this point) jenny game to question is the infamous Jenny's Quiz.
The formula changes, instead of the game being about Jenny and her sexuality, it claims Jenny to be a master of quizzes.
She is antagonized in this game, which could either be perceived as misogynistic since she's seen as an enemy, or can be perceived as empowering as the 'Final Boss' role is often claimed in games by male characters. The final boss is often seen as the 'toughest, strongest, most difficult' which again could be said to compliment Jenny positively. One could also classify however that having her being 'most difficult' could be alluding to the stereotype of females being "difficult."
(However that's a far stretching generalization that is more likely to be classified as sexist, so in this case would not add to the argument about Jenny being final boss as sexist.)
In the final bit of the game (spoilers warning I warned you k), the joke of Jenny showing her breasts returns, in allusion to the previous games. Again it point to sexist ideals, however as done before, Jenny is blocked at the last second by Ric Olzow again. It therefore is equal to Jenny's Show in being classifiable as sexist. (Which means it is again whether a joke translates to the viewer correctly.)
In conclusion, though not done in a particularly clear way, the Jenny Games seem to attempt to gain awareness on sexism and sexist ideologies, as opposed to condoning them.
Jenny's Show: The use of the punchline does make it less offensive, and the lack of context can be understood as Jenny taking control of her sexuality -these are empowering, or at least not offensive things.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, the fact that you are a male creator using the body of a female character can be slightly problematic -you have created a female character that is removing her clothing, and getting viewership because of this. Additionally, the phrase "your entertainment for tonight" seems slightly degrading. Yes, sex trade workers are providing an "entertainment" service, but the phrase aligns Jenny with the idea of consumption. SHE is the entertainment, not the act that she is about to perform. Over all, it's not terrible, and I wouldn't brand you a misogynistic pig based on this video, but it is not without it's issues.
Jenny's Game: I'm not really familiar with this one, but from your description it seems to be relatively issue free.
Jenny's Quiz: One thing that you failed to mention when discussing the problems of Jenny's Quiz, is the fact that each quiz master has a section that they are an "expert" on (e.g. PJ and film). However, the section that Jenny is an "expert" on is Riccy. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Bechdel Test. It's a test where you take a movie and see if there are two prominent female characters (usually signified by having names) that talk to each other at some point in the movie about something OTHER then men. Very few movies actually pass this test, even movies produced for women i.e. "RomComs". While you can't directly apply the Bechdel Test to Jenny's Quiz, it does illuminate a potential issue with the quiz.
The use of a female antagonist does not make something sexist. That occurs when the female is a villain BECAUSE she's female. (e.g. antagonizing feminists because how dare a woman ask for equal rights -look up straw feminists if you want examples of this, it's really fascinating).
All this being said, I don't think you're sexist, and I don't think that your creative endeavors are innately sexist, but they are complicated, just like everything in culture that we consume.
TL;DR -The Game.
If I were a female creator, would you still find this problematic? Ultimately you make a solid point - Sexual selling is sexual selling - and no matter the gender it can (and likely will) degrade.I'll admit Jenny's Show is a bombshell on my creative palette, but I'm trying my best to accept my artistic works for the crazy things they are.
DeleteJenny's Game has implicative issues, such as having to dress-up jenny for looks, but the underlying message of 'its not always about stripping' at least puts a kink in the genre.
And getting game over'd in a dress-up game? still so proud of that, haha.
You are completely correct in mentioning that, to which I'm sorry for glazing over that. I will mention that my vocabulary gets confusing, because I use 'Ric Olzow' as a term for work related to me, as a "company" name, and as a reference to both myself and as the character.
Because of this, her stage was meant as using Ric Olzow as a blanket term for my stuff. That said, I failed in communicating it, and indeed deserve to fail the Bechdel Test.
I'm familiar with it, but I know I have much difficulty following it. (Which is kinda sad and sorry to say, but hey, PTE is making me learn maybe?)
Good to know, I will keep that info in mind in the future.
Appreciated, good to know, and thank you for your insights !
TL;DR I just lost.
I agree with what Ashley said (also glad I don't have to try to type that out now). I think that one thing that should be mentioned is the concept of sexual objectification. When a female (or a male too, but it doesn't really seem to happen much) is portrayed sexually just for the sake of it or if she has no personality and just exists for being sexy that's sexual objectification.
ReplyDeleteI think that in Jenny's Show it qualifies as sexual objectification, but as Ashley said, the punchline lessens the offensive quality by deceiving expectations.
In Jenny's Game (it's been a while so I don't remember exactly), the player is punished for trying to make Jenny undress so I don't think it's offensive.
In Jenny's Quiz, although the punchline hits again, I think that it's somewhat problematic that her body is being offered as a reward.
tbh I've always felt that a lot of the ric olzow stuff was like pretty focused on big tits.
All this being said, I also would not call you a sexist pig either; I think that when you are a person who is not feeling this particular kind of sexism directly, it can be hard to see and understand the problem. But I think it's good that you're thinking about it and will probably be more aware of it in the future.
I did my research, and I agree, Jenny is sexually objectified. Her only purpose for being in the movie is to be sexy and sell sexual intention.
DeleteI admit I had originally made it to try to appease a theoretical audience at the time.
Glad you don't find Jenny's Game overtly offensive.
Honestly, I think by making that joke return, I ruined the ending of JQ. That's not the first time I've written a bad ending though...cough cough Animanga-R....I think by that time I just wanted some snappy way to finish a way too big project and failsafed to a not so fail safe option.
Figuring my stuff was originally directed at teenage guys, I can easily see how you'd find that. However I'm seeing now that I need to rethink 'my audience'. And rethink how my works coming off, because I don't want my work to just be big tits and bad jokes.
Appreciated, and very good point. Though I don't feel it, I end up surrounded by it, from ads and videos to ideologies and influencial forces. It's hard to see and understand when its seemingly normal.
I'll be trying at the very least.
In re: "my audience was teen guys thus big boobs," I think that even if the audience was only teenage guys, that still isn't really a reason to default to all female characters having large breasts because it directly caters to and perpetuates the stereotype that females exist to please men. Also if dudes won't watch your content simply because the girls in it don't have big boobs a) it probably isn't good content and b) those dudes are gross and already think that they have the right to be sexually pleased by a woman's body at all times so idk if you want to those people as an audience anyway.
Delete(Also I'm not saying the above is your current attitude, but I thought I might as well add this and also it's like 5:30 am and I couldn't sleep and was thinking about this so if it's not coherent that would be why lol.)
I'm not sure whether to be complimented or insulted over the prospect that all my female characters have large breasts. They're all drawn the same way, and their design is not a direct reflection of what I'd have as actual breast size. I more focus on trying to get them to look atomically correct, however I do realize that my drawing style has inherent flaws, such as large sweaters having the same tightness as a tight shirt. These are things I will have to work on, but when they appear I'm not doing them to create focus on breasts, I'm trying to make sure I try to keep anatomical accuracy.
DeleteAlso where as I see where you're coming from about catering to a specific demographic for an unsavory purpose, I will say that 'It probably isn't good content' is relative to the content being produced. I learned rather fast that if I wanted to truly make headway with the route I was taking, I would have to go into creating pornographic material. Odd as it is, I find this uncomfortable for me. Plus, other content creators like Zone and Nitrotitan already exist and (in my opinion) do a much better job than I can do.
You make a strong point about feeding into the notion of 'girls are here for guy's enjoyment' though, and that's ultimately why I made this post, I needed to learn through attempting to rationalize my content to what extent I was responsible for spreading sexist ideals.
I learn best from mistakes (un?)fortunently.
I'm very happy you added this, the more points created, the more thought is provoked. Sorry if this was responsible for your loss of sleep, though I'll admit the fact this was on your mind makes me kinda happy, because it means it was something worth caring and thinking about.
You're coherent, no worries.