They’re more than just a collection of parts, writes illustrator Noah Bradley in an appeal to his entertainment industry colleagues.
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Dear artists in fantasy/sci-fi/games/films,
Your paintings don’t have women in them.
You paint boobs. You paint butts. You paint legs. You paint a hollow shell that vaguely resembles a woman. But you sure as hell don’t paint women.
Women are rare enough in our world of fantasy & sci-fi. Most of the time in games and movies they serve little purpose beyond eye candy or something to rescue or something to exploit.
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You paint a collection of parts that women have. All faces merge into one monotonous ideal. Breasts are big. Waists are non-existent. Clothing is rare. Baby oil is in constant supply. They’re all young and they’re all beautiful. Female characters could be swapped between games or films and no one would take a second glance. A pair of fake boobs and a round butt and she’s ready to go. I’m not going to call out specific games or movies or artists or paintings. Nor am I listing exceptions to this. Because that’s not the point. It would take an incredible amount of ignorance (intentional or otherwise) to not see this issue. Talking about specifics just invites nit-picking.
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Women are rare enough in our world of fantasy & sci-fi. Most of the time in games and movies they serve little purpose beyond eye candy or something to rescue or something to exploit. They’re things. They’re not people.
And it’s our fault. It’s our fault for treating women like this.
Let’s see some different women. Women with different bodies. Different faces. With imperfections. With personality. Strong, powerful, independent, amazing women.
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You can blame society or your boss or popular culture. But at the end of the day it’s your call. You can decide to keep doing things the way they’ve been done or make something a little different. You can paint Women. The way they are. The beautiful, wonderful, amazing people that they are. The young or old, beautiful or plain, curvy or skinny, short or tall. And I’m not even saying they have to be covered up all the time. I’ve seen paintings of classy nudes and trashy, fully-clothed women. It has far less to do with what you’re showing as how you’re showing it.
So let’s see some different women. Women with different bodies. Different faces. With imperfections. With personality. Strong, powerful, independent, amazing women. I’m not speaking for women here because I can’t possibly do that—I’ll never know what it’s like for women. But I’ll say as a guy that I’m sick of seeing women portrayed this way. It’s boring at best, offensive at worst.
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I’m sure you’ll ask why I’m focused on paintings of women and not men. “Men are idealized too!” you’ll scream. And you’re right. They are. Big, buff, ripped guys abound. Cut jaw lines and 5 o’clock shadows. But let’s be honest: there’s more variety in male body types than female. There’s big guys, small guys, thin, thick, old, young, everything. And we see ‘em all. So we’re already getting a variety, even if it is a variety of ideals.
It’s a lot easier to paint yet another “hot chick” than it is to paint a “beautiful woman.” So we just keep painting those “hot chicks.”
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Then you’ll scream, “But it’s fantasy! Why should it look real?” And you’re right. It is fantasy. And fantasy is amazing. We escape reality and enter a fantastical world of infinite possibility. But the best fantasy is always based in reality. It is a relatable, understandable world with fantastical elements. Big-boobed, mindless women with vapid stares do not have any place in fantasy. Paint ideals, but keep them grounded in reality. Too many artists are taking the easy way out. They’re foregoing even the slightest amount of creativity. It’s a lot easier to paint yet another “hot chick” than it is to paint a “beautiful woman.” So we just keep painting those “hot chicks.”
We should strive to push our field beyond this. To push it into a territory of diverse beauty. Women are incredibly beautiful and it cheapens that beauty to paint them the way so many of us do.
We can do better than this. And it can start with your next painting.
Originally appeared at https://medium.com/@noahbradley
Artwork: “Dream of Me on Lonely Nights”/Noah Bradley
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Thanks for writing this Noah and acknowledging the issue. There are a lot of women out there that love sci-fi, video games and the likes. But it can make you feel less then human when the only time guys are interested in seeing women be part of the stories is when they are just a collection of body parts in skimpy outfits. It’s probably one of the reasons why I maintain that Buffy The Vampire Slayer was one of the best written sci-fi shows out there. While conventionally pretty, Sara Michelle Gellar had a normal body and Joss Whedon wrote… Read more »
I must play some different games but I see variety in both genders, although there are common themes like big buff guys, sexy athletic women, etc.
Tune in for next week’s episode where we will discuss the gender gap in who gets killed in games. We need to kill more women! It’s unfair to kill so many men.
Yes, you guys need to kill more prostitutes, that are usually the majority of female characters. WEho cares about female protagonists. You need more male sex workers and strippers.
@ Theorema, yes, the history of humankind has known several cultures and periods in history where the male body was the epitome of human beauty, not the female body. It’s also a matter of the artist’s preference and expression: Michelangelo painted and drew his female figures quite manly, because he used male models and he had a personal preference for the male body (in more ways than one). Still, I don’t find those female figures *that* unrealistic, we really do come in all shapes and not always in the pear/hourglass variations, but that’s a whole different topic. When it comes… Read more »
I’ve been to Vienna museum of art history last week, and made an interesting observation. If you look at the very old works — say beginning with Greco-Roman statues and up to the point where the Renaissance art revolution reached northern Europe — you’ll find that the women depicted (e.g. Eve in Eden) look most peculiar. They look like the artist took a male body and absentmindedly stuck a couple of spherical too-far-apart breasts on it. I have not studied art history, so I can only guess why that is so. Was there a beauty ideal that favored male proportions?… Read more »
I think you make a good point about the affect this kind of dismorphism has had on women too. Unfortunately, I think a lot of women are buying into their own objectficiation for some reasons I could explain and some I couldn’t. I’m not an expert in art history but I took some classes and read a lot of books about it. I disagree with you about how in the old works women looked “peculiar” or “masculine”. Back then women didn’t have to go to spin class or spend hours and hours doing yoga, get bolt ons, tans, fake nails,… Read more »
I have a suggestion: why don’t you create the images you desire? Then let the consumers decide how they like their fantasy. I like my women strong of character, intelligent and independent. But I do not require others to chill their creativity to satisfy my desires. Artists should depict women (and men) as they see fit and let the audience decide whether they want to consume.
The whole point here is that many fantasy artists go for the stereotypical T&A because that’s what 10 other artists have done. When it gets to that point, it just isn’t art anymore. It’s people copying each other because they think boobs and butts are best sellers. And let’s be honest: most of the most popular crap posted on Deviant Art today, if it isn’t MLP, a kitty, or some anime, it’s everything short of soft porn with a top-heavy chick and a peek-a-boo cheerleader skirt. The classical painters may have painted nudes who had curves, but they weren’t some… Read more »
Thank you! As a professional artist I’m so bored by the depictions of “women” aka body bits. Artists should impress with unique/creative depictions, not blend in with the same visual blather already barraging viewers.
Dear Mr Picasso,
Your paintings don’t have women in them.
You paint boobs. You paint butts. You paint legs. You paint a hollow shell that vaguely resembles a woman. But you sure as hell don’t paint women.
You paint a collection of parts that women have. All faces merge into one monotonous ideal.
You should be ashamed of yourself. Really.
But to be honest, Mr Picasso mostly painted angles and geometric shapes which had barely enough resemblence to real people to be recognized as depictions of such. 😀 So for him, the argument does not apply.
What’s with Mr Dalí, though? For decades all female figures he painted were straight-up portraits of his wife. He put her into nearly every one of his paintings — both nude and clothed. Mr Dalí loved his wife very much. For a while he even co-signed her name with his own on the bottom of his paintings.
Yeah, Picasso isn’t exactly the greatest example here of a man with a healthy attitude toward the female gender. He was actually a misogynist. He was known for his ill and abusive treatment of his female companions. He had two wives, countless mistresses, four children by three women and there were a few women who committed suicide because of their association with him. He dated younger and younger women as he grew old. He hooked up with a 17 year old girl while married and moved into a place right across the street with this girl from his wife’s home.… Read more »
Good god, what an asshole. Being a promiscuous man is one thing, not good unless all parties agree to it but he treated women like dirt too? Today I lost respect for him.
So… he used to act like most/all men used to and would once again if misogyny wasn’t out of fashion anymore? Not surprising.