Top Gear: The Interceptors

In the video women are used primarily to add visual appeal to the title sequence for men. The general concept plays off of old spy TV shows and movies, and women are used in a similar manner to affect the “Bond Gaze”. The silhouettes of the women dancing spliced into the intro are there solely for their looks. The hosts of Top Gear even say to the audience before they air the clip that they specifically needed to have cars, guns, karate, and women. At one point, Jeremy Clarkson is shown stopping a plane from taking off and afterwards a beautiful women walks out. In this clip, he not only saves a woman from supposedly being kidnapped (stereotypical damsel in distress role) but also has two half naked women sitting in the back of his car for absolutely no reason. In another clip with the same women, he is shown driving along and one of the women touches his arm in that “oh you’re so strong” sort of way after which Jeremy glances at the camera with an “I’m so cool” look. These two scenes refer to everything that is wrong with women’s roles in media: they have to show off their body, they have to be saved by a strong male lead, and they have to reinforce the male lead’s masculinity. Near the end of the video, Richard Hammond drives up to the Playboy Club of London in an attempt to make himself look “cooler”. Frankly, this really has nothing to do with being a spy unless spies need to objectify women like Playboy does to appeal to the masses. Isn’t that a strange thought? Again it is the objectification of women that makes men look better to the world.
The whole point of this introduction scene is to highlight the coolness of the Jensen Interceptor, the car featured in the video. Everything the hosts do in the video is to emphasize how cool the car is. The way women are presented in the video in relation to purpose of the video is very sexist indeed. They cannot look “cool” unless they are either half naked or being saved from doom by the men which is a direct reference to the gender stereotype and appeals directly to the Bond Gaze. The Bond Gaze refers to how men view women only as objects and think that women are an accessory to their glory.
Throughout their show, the hosts of Top Gear have been known to poke fun at topics in news, politics, popular culture, and anything they can get their hands on. Despite their childish jokes on screen, they all have deep views about society. From Jeremy’s article on women in Top Gear, it can be inferred that the hosts agree with the feminist views that women are only important if they look good on screen. Thus it is possible that the entire introduction sequence is a satire on the traditional concepts of what makes a cool TV show. After all, a silhouette of a man kicking a dancing woman in the crotch cannot be interpreted as anything but humor.
As a spoof of the whole spy genre of TV shows, I think that the video makes a good point as to what made the genre appeal to men: fast cars, karate, and women. I also think that people noticed how wrong it was and changed the way the shows opened. In Burn Notice, a modern spy show, the title sequence only has a small clip of women on the beach. It is so small that if you blink, you may miss it. This shows that society understand the problem with how women were portrayed used in these introductions just to attract male viewers. On the other hand, even though TV shows may no longer feature women as objects in their openings with as much frequency, they still have them “featured” in the shows themselves.


Burn Notice Opening by xkaelar

I think that Top Gear definitely made this video as a satire of all that was wrong with television back in the day. Not only does the fact that when women come onto the show, they are spoken to about their opinions and not about their looks (as much). Furthermore, the humor in the clip makes nothing serious or believable and at least when I saw the way women were cast I laughed because it was making fun of their typical roles in the genre.

Social Non-Conservatism & Our Grammy Awards

Today in pop culture, it’s a shame to say that we still see women unequally glanced upon. Female celebrities constantly make appearances with a newly designed outfit with high levels of sex appeal. They are always primped up to look their best, and that usually means they left some of their clothes in wardrobe. With all of the feminist and equality movements out there, this shouldn’t be a requirement for a celebrity to get exposure. Women still succeed in businesses, education, and athletics world-wide; they should not have to sport any less amount of clothing than men to be seen as attractive in today’s modern world. An example that just about everybody is familiar with is a highly anticipated red carpet event that we know as the Grammy Awards, but the unbalanced scale of clothing can be seen in basically any celebrity event.

As an example, I found this photo of one of my favorite female celebrities, Katy Perry. Just because she chose to show herself in a public scenario, she chose a very revealing dress that exposes more than anybody really ought to see, all in order to make sure she gets some of the spot light and attention. This really isn’t fair, because male celebrities are still stalked by paparazzi even if they step out of their homes in sweats and a long-sleeve tee. While Katy Perry has one of the best singing voices in my opinion, her lack of conservative clothing is still a necessity to acquire the most attention she can possibly get by appealing to the male-run media stations and cameramen. Where talent should be all it takes for women to achieve stardom (which it does, to an extent), they must dress in a lewd manner in order to attain media coverage. Most female celebrities don’t really have too much of a male fan base up until they begin leaking photos into the media of them exposing their bodies.

Why is this put up with?

Men are expected to wear suits or tuxes, whereas women only get their time in the limelight if they are wearing some sort of revealing dress (unless you're Lady Gaga, and you have see-through skin suits). Here are some examples from the 2011 Grammy Awards:

Here, Selena Gomez is shown exhibiting her body in a skin-tight dress with a deep-V. Instead of dressing conservatively, she chooses to reveal her chest because she understands that the society whom she presents herself for expects nothing less. As she made an appearance at the Oscars, she had a better chance of getting camera time off-stage with this, rather than a concealing outfit. All of the little primping done with her makeup and outfit was a must for her to look her best out on the stage as she presented awards as well, further supporting the male gaze that has remained a constant thorn in the side of fashion and society.

Drake showed up for the Grammy Awards in a full long-sleeved suit. The men are expected to make their appearances revealing nothing but their faces, but in our culture, women are expected to reveal their bodies. Male actors, singers, and performers need not expose themselves in order to be liked. Males in society will choose to like a male singer if their music is good, rather than by what they wear; in effect, male actors will be successful as long as they perform well in movies. Where guys don’t say, “Oh man, Sean Connery looks really handsome,” when it comes to females, positive comments almost always come down to something like, “Wow! Angelina Jolie definitely picked a sexy outfit to wear!” Male actors are usually defined by their ability to entertain the masses, which is how it is supposed to be, yet females are defined by how attractive they are.

The levels of acceptance set by men for women are beginning to unfurl as a judgmental scale for women to use as well. When I hear my female friends talk about celebrities, they are starting to like them more and more based on creative lingerie outfits and sex appeal, rather than liking them for being a good role model like it used to be. Often female spectators can be heard commenting on things such as, “Oh gross, how could anybody let Nicki Minaj show herself at the Grammys in an outfit like that?” When celebrities actually do dress conservatively in public events such as the Awards, they are criticized for being unattractive or making an unintelligent move for their social status. While it really is an extreme outfit, the conceal and…ahem, sleekness of the outfit makes me applause Nicki for taking a stand for conservatism in attire for women world-wide.

You go, girl.

References:

Manofthehour. "Rapper Drake - MAN OF THE HOUR." Contents - MAN OF THE HOUR. Man of the Hour, 14 Feb. 2011. Web. 16 Sept. 2011. .

Moss, Hilary. "Grammys 2011: Nicki Minaj In Head-To-Toe Leopard Print (PHOTOS, POLL)." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 13 Feb. 2011. Web. 16 Sept. 2011. .

Premiere Guide Media. "Actress/singer Selena Gomez Arrives at the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards." PGM. Premiere Guide Media. Web. 16 Sept. 2011. .

Starr, Chris. "Katy Perry's 7 Best Outfits." JoeCrazy.com. JoeCrazy, 31 July 2011. Web. 10 Sept. 2011. .

Tribune Media Sources, Inc. "Brad Pitt." Zap2it.com. Zap 2 It, 2011. Web. 15 Sept. 2011. .

The Predictable Life Of A Female Video Game Character

Picture yourself in an intense battle in the 7th war of imperium, or leading out King Arthur’s knights of the round table in search of the holy grail. Or maybe you’re out there battling the vicious Dragon “Bubbles” or jousting with the Dark Knight. You have your trusty sword, Excalibur to slay your enemies, your shield of Shukaku to protect you and your Breastplate of bravado(alliterations make things awesome) as your final line of defense. Right, now hold on there. The last bit pretty much only makes sense if you’re a dude. If you’re a girl you’re probably going to be dressed in a bikini with some chain mail slapped on it and lets face it, you’re pretty much going to die if you go out to war in a swim suit.

Obviously this is probably isn’t what they actually wore back in the day but this is indeed the image that movies and in particular video games have put in our heads. Video games have come a long way since the idea was first conceived but a few themes have not changed. Its always the Zombies, the Russians, the Nazis or your favorite evil wizard. But the recurring bit that I’d like to highlight is the portrayal the female characters. They are almost always pointless and/or have big breasts.

Lets look at Mario-one of the most iconic figures in the world of entertainment let alone video games. If you ever took a step back and looked at what the game was actually about you would have noticed that it was the good ol’ damsel in distress gig. A beautiful princess waiting for her man to come rescue her from an evil villain, how original. As revolutionary as that game was, it can be argued that it set the foundation for generations of games to portray women as helpless and needy.

Now you might say there have been games where the main character and hero of the game is female. Even these are designed with the intention of attracting the male gaze. Take X-blades for example, the plot boils down the same old Good vs Evil cliché but if you’ve ever played the game you’d know that it didn’t sell because of its plot or game play but because the main character was a tall tanned blonde with flowing hair and a ginormous pair. And to compound the effect, her wardrobe is restricted to a two-piece that struggle to keep things in place if you know what I mean.

Some female leads are however, more generously clothed like Bayonetta(albeit in black skin tight latex but hey its an improvement). But the male gaze strikes again- her attacks and movements have a very significant sexual undertone, and that’s me putting things delicately . It would not be an exaggeration to say that she looks like someone out of a bondage porno movie.(There’s something I never thought I’d say on an English assignment)

However it should be mentioned that there have been cases where women are given meaningful roles and importance in games like Prince of Persia Sand of Time. The plot actually develops Princess Farah’s character into someone interesting and not your average helpless princess(take note Zelda).Sadly, very few games can boast of being fair to their female characters.

One would think that nerds being the (supposedly) more intellectual demographic would be above such a primitive line of thinking but this is clearly not the case(I am assuming a reasonably large percentage of passionate gamers are nerds/geeks).This is perhaps a good example to show that sexism exists in every nook and corner of society. Personally I don’t think people should have a problem with the media focusing on beautiful men or women as long as it also shows them having other positive qualities like intelligence generally being a well-rounded person. I find that the moment people start talking about feminism its like they are annoyed at people for being good looking which isn’t really fair is it? Its about being a complete person and if someone happens to be good looking then good for them. In my opinion its only negative when the cover of the book is all that is analyzed and dissected. Anyway, I digress.

In conclusion it can be said that the roles of women in video games are as pathetic as the roles of their real life counterparts in popular culture and media. Objectified, dumbed down, belittled, dominated and (most importantly in my opinion) not taken seriously. Video games need to do their bit in dispelling negative female stereotypes and questioning traditional gender roles but are in fact only strengthening them. But until then we’re “stuck” with Lara Croft. I will now leave you with Y U NO guy who I think makes a very good point.