Gallery Carre
T and A: Body Image and Jiggle Technology (GamerGod.com)
Dec 16th, 2024 by Viviane
Throughout history, the image of women has had significant presence in the world at large; however, much to the chagrin of many women, those images have been dictated by men. With the advent of modern media – movies, TV, and now the internet – those images are more prevalent than ever before, and the dictates still remain. But, why is this image so important, and what does it have to do with videogames?
Camille Paglia, in her book Sexual Personae, maintains that at the core, women represent nature, and man strives to control nature, thus he strives to control woman. “The primary image [of women in media] is the femme fatal, the woman fatal to man,” she explains. “Woman’s beauty is a compromise with her dangerous archetypal nature. It gives the eye the comforting illusion of the intellectual control over nature” (13-17). With this assertion, it is apparent that men’s domination of female body image is intertwined with his need to control the feminine.
Naomi Wolf is much more blunt. In her book The Beauty Myth, she argues that this very standard of beauty set forth by the media is the primary mechanism of women’s oppression by men. She discusses the “suffering caused by trying to meet the demands of the thin ideal” (1). Concerns arising from this thesis include body image, discrimination based on beauty, over-consumption of beauty products, and eating disorders.
Many readers may think this is a stretch, but let’s look at visual media and see how far off we are. The advent of modern cinema dates back to the early 1900’s with the silent films. Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, and Joan Crawford fit the bill as almost carbon copies images of the day dictated by a Hollywood controlled exclusively by men. Delicately coiffed, high breasts, and a boyish shape, the lack of variation in appearance lends credence to the supposition of men’s influence in the realm of women’s aesthetics.
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